"I want to make the ugliest, dirtiest movie I've ever made," says Minority Report director Steven Spielberg on a DVD interview and the ascetic, colour-bleached look and air of deep paranoia couldn't be further from what his fans expect.

Tom Cruise and Spielberg had never worked together before, but both have been through their science- fiction and Kubrick phases and this elaborate and complex noir thriller is true to its tortured creator, Philip K Dick - still ahead of his time 20 years after his death - and a far better film than AI or Vanilla Sky.

Spielberg assembled a team of futurologists to portray the world of 2054. Its eye-scanning mechanical spiders, lethal hybrid plants, personalised talking ads and floating holograms is fascinating and believable.

Its Orwellian central conceit, pre-crime, predicted by "precogs" led by a pale, shuddering, otherworldly Samantha Morton, provides the motor for a gripping plot (and has a contemporary echo in US foreign policy on Iraq). Although there's a lost child at the heart of things, Spielberg never succumbs to the treacle that made AI's ending so unwatchable. This is a Dick adaptation to stand alongside Blade Runner and Total Recall. Released on December 2.